Erie-area women stepping up into health care jobs

Sunday

"I came into medicine at a time when very few women were surgeons," said Justine M. Schober, 60, a urologist surgeon at UPMC Hamot.

During her residency program, she said the other residents called her names, made fun of her and tried to make her feel like she "didn't deserve to be there."

A supervisor eventually pulled her aside and offered her some advice.

"Just don't ever let them see you cry," she said she was told. "If they see you cry, they've won. They've hurt you. Go home and cry. Then, after crying, get mad. Come back here stronger, more intelligent, more capable and better than all of them."

"It was the best thing that anyone ever told me," she said. "I did everything that he said I could be: smarter, harder working, more capable. It worked."

Before 2017, when women for the first time made up more than half the student body in medical school, women old enough to be their grandmothers were forcing their way into the medical field — and not just into nursing, which had been their mainstay.

"When I graduated nursing school, you stood to give the physician the seat or the chair," said Anne Pedersen, 60, director of nursing at UPMC Hamot. "Physicians could be irritable and angry and frustrated with the performance of nurses. It was more allowed and acceptable."

Silvia Ferretti, D.O., now provost, vice president and dean of academic affairs at the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, went into osteopathic medicine in part because it was more inclusive of women.

"When I went into medicine in the 1970s, women were relegated to women's med schools," she said. "Except in osteopathic medicine. There, 30 to 50 percent of the class were women."

The founder of osteopathic medicine, Andrew Taylor Still, opened his first school with the statement: "Women are admitted on the same terms as men. It is the policy of the school that there shall be no distinction as to sex and that all shall have the same opportunities, and be held to the same requirements. They pursue the same studies, attend the same lectures, are subjected to the same rules, and pass the same examinations."

Ferretti said she saw some minor differences.

"When we went to the surgical suite to scrub, there was a doctors' section and women went to the nursing section," she said. "But I never felt anybody mistreated me. In osteopathic medicine, people are united around a patient."

She said people often asked her if she ever felt discriminating conditions due to her gender. "I really didn't," she said. "It's not that they didn't exist, but that was not my experience."

Change is healthy

No matter what time period you look at, it is impossible to overstate the influence women have had on the health care profession and how that is picking up speed. One simple traditional reason is that nurses and aides far outnumber doctors. But there's more to it than that.

"Women really control health care in their decisions that they make for their children," Ferretti said. "And women are requesting women in certain specialties. And women are nurturing and have the children and we can't deny those factors."

Schober points out that women are streaming into the health care field in droves. "Women in medical schools exceeds the number of men and in dental school and pharmacy school, and some professions that are traditionally women still are, including nursing and pharmacy techs and respiratory techs. A lot of the staffing, such as medical assistants, are women.

"I think that culturally, across the world, women are the caregivers."

Schober said she welcomes the changes to the makeup of the world of physicians.

"I think it's wonderful to teach women," she said. "I think the world is different now. We are much more respectful of many differences. My institution at this time would never tolerate sexual harassment. The surgeons I work with are such good people. My residents are such good people.

"They are better than we were ... It's a different world."

Pedersen said she noticed a real change in medicine because the profession is becoming more tolerant of the work-life balance choices its employees have to make.

"The rise of the hospitalist role, working certain shifts and regular schedules so child care can be managed around those," she said, adding that more medical fields with controllable schedules, such as radiology and emergency department physicians, are making it easier for families to manage careers in medicine.

"There's been a dramatic change," Pedersen said. "I've watched the affiliation of Hamot join UPMC with the corporate guidelines that have truly demonstrated a corporate culture of dignity and respect. That has taken front and center."

She admits there's no magic wand.

"I also know it's not perfect," she said. "We're still working on that. It's a century of unlearning certain things and changing the culture and valuing all for what they bring to the hospital every day, but the values are there and we're going to get there."

Healing the pay gap

Despite their dominance in numbers within health care, women are still consistently earning less than their male counterparts. In the broad overall health care category, women earn 73 percent of what men do in Erie County. Across the U.S., that number is 69 percent.

In the highest paid category of health care workers in Erie County, women make only 71 percent.

Ferretti wonders if the category is misleading because the broad overall category would include everyone from lab techs to heart surgeons. Women are more likely to be employed in the lower paid positions within the category.

"For example, a rehab doctor wouldn't make what a cardiologist makes," she said. "I would think that doctors of pharmacy have achieved parity. And in dentistry, the same is true."

She herself hires doctors. "I would never give a woman less," Ferretti said. "In fact, in positions of leadership, we try to give the best chances to other women. We want to develop them. We have a special interest in making sure women get developed in the sciences."

Which is not to say she or anyone else at LECOM would pass over a deserving man.

"We're going for equality," she said. "That's the point of all this. I think we're getting to that point and let's just keep it going. Who is the best person for the job?"

Pedersen said she thinks the pay gap is narrowing and pay parity in the medical profession is within reach because so many more women are entering the profession and rising into leadership roles, and, in one category — health technologists and technicians — men and women in Erie County do earn roughly the same amount. In the U.S. at large, women still earn only 85 percent of what men do in this category.

Looking forward

Katie Adamczyk, 29, a LECOM Health physical therapy assistant, is a product of this new world. She said she always knew she wanted to work in the health care field, and never gave her gender a second thought.

"I, personally, don't look at gender," she said. "If I'm going to see a physician or any type of health care specialist, if they have a good reputation and are respectful and compassionate, that's what matters to me."

She said what matters in a health care provider is not found in one's gender but in a person's motivation, understanding and nurturing instinct.

"It's definitely not cut out for everyone," she said.

She has a bachelor's degree from Gannon University and continued her education at Mercyhurst North East to become a physical therapist assistant.

"I am where I want to be in my field," she said. "I would like to grow more as an assistant, taking more continuing education and being more specific with different therapy techniques."

She thinks more women are entering health care because the entire field is growing so quickly.

"There are more opportunities out there with schooling and jobs that help bring women and men into the field," she said. "Having a degree within the field almost guarantees job stability."

She listed health insurance, job security, flexible schedules, good salaries and opportunities for growth as motivations for women to go into health care.

"I think there are more opportunities out there with schooling and jobs that help bring women and men into the field," Adamczyk said. "The health care system is only growing and it will continue to get bigger and better."

Jennie Geisler can be reached at 870-1885 or by email. Follow her on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ETNgeisler.

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